


Breaking Point

by guera



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guera/pseuds/guera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And he can see the exact moment Stiles decides on a lie. He’s actually a little curious as to how exactly Stiles is going to explain this one, even if it’s not the truth.</p><p>“Derek and I are dating.”</p><p>XXX</p><p>or the time the Sheriff finds a half naked Derek Hale in his teenaged son's bed (without the teenage son,<i> thank god</i>) and decides he's tired of all the lies</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Point

Breaking Point

John doesn’t remember the book until he’s face to face with Deputy Kellis. She actually recoils from him, her mouth half open in what’s probably her normal greeting, and John realizes he’s glaring at her.

He sags and runs a hand over his face. “Sorry, not mad at you, it’s just…” He waves his hand in the air. “I was supposed to bring that book back that Stiles borrowed from you and I forgot.” He doesn’t add _why_ he forgot. Tries to not think about the fact that his son lied to him. Again. How they had sat across from each other in tense silence last night at dinner afterwards, because John knows Stiles knows John knows he’s lying.

Deputy Kellis just blinks at him for a minute. “It’s okay. It’s not that important of a book.” She smiles gently at him. “Really, Stiles and I were just talking about the different types of dragons in books, and I found this really cool, old looking book at a flea market with awesome illustrations and thought he might get a kick out of it.” She shrugs. “You can just bring it in some other time.”

John huffs a laugh he doesn’t really feel. “I’ll pick it up at lunchtime,” he smirks a little. “It’ll give me a reason to go through the drive thru.”

She laughs at him. “I won’t tell Stiles.”

He turns away before she can see the smile slip from his face.

XXX

The book’s not on the kitchen table.

Stiles told him last night, before the lies and the silences, that he’d leave the book on the table so John could take it in to the station in the morning. But it’s not on the table. He checks the living room and the little table by the front door, but nothing.

He tries to tell himself that he’s not going in Stiles’ room to snoop, just to grab the book and go. It’s not an invasion of privacy, it’s his damn house after all. And it’s not like there’s anything in there that shouldn’t be.

It still takes John a few minutes to work up the nerve to open the door.

The breath catches in John’s throat and he’s frozen, half in and half out the door. Because there is something in Stile’s room that shouldn’t be there. A half-naked something. In his teenaged son’s bed.

John blinks and the image doesn’t disappear. Instead his mind starts cataloguing.  A broad bare back turned towards the door and a dark head of hair sunk in the pillow. His son’s sheets tangled around a pair of long legs. And a tattoo. A very distinctive, very memorable tattoo.

John swallows, takes a step back and closes the door. He can barely hear the snick of the door latch over the roaring thought in his head.

Derek Hale is half naked in his son’s bed.

XXX

John pulls up to the school just as Stiles is pushing through the main doors. He makes his way to the cruiser in his usually graceless manner, his face screwed up in concern. He’s already talking as he opens the passenger door.

“…wrong? Something about an emergency? Are you okay?” Stiles looks him over as he climbs in, obviously looking for an injury of some sort or some clue as to why John would pull him out of school.

“Close the door.” Stiles blinks but complies and John waits until he pulling at the seatbelt before he throws the car into drive.

They drive for all of five minutes before John can’t take the fidgeting and the looks anymore and pulls off onto the shoulder. He’s so tired. Of the lies, of the worry. Of trying to dance between holding on to his son as tight as he can because he can see he’s losing him and worrying that holding so tight is what’s going to drive what little of his son he has left away.

“Dad?” And the hesitancy in Stiles voice nearly guts him. How did he let it get so bad?

“I’m tired, Stiles.”

“I- Do you want me to drive?”

John bangs his head against the steering wheel and laughs hollowly. He finally turns his head, it still resting against the wheel, and stares at his son. “What I want, is for you to tell me the truth.”

He can see his son go on the defensive almost immediately. His mouth opens with, undoubtedly, generic reassurances that John just can’t listen to again. So he decides to go for the big guns.

“You can start by telling me why I found a half-naked, twenty-five year old, former fugitive in your bed.”

Stiles is speechless. In nearly any other context John would want to take a picture to save it for posterity but he can see the wheels working behind Stiles eyes trying to come up with something to explain that. Something _other_ than the truth.

And he can see the exact moment Stiles decides on a lie. He’s actually a little curious as to how exactly Stiles is going to explain this one, even if it’s not the truth.

“Derek and I are dating.”

John lifts his head off the steering wheel and stares. Because that…”That’s the lie you’re going with? That’s the lie that’s better than the truth? _Really?”_

“it’s not, Dad. A lie I mean. We’ve only been going out for a little while, and I didn’t know how to tell you…”

And John is done. “Alright. Then I suppose I’ll just go home and wake Hale up and arrest him for statutory rape.” He goes to throw the car in drive and can see the panic bloom on his son’s face. It makes him feel sick.

“Wait, Dad, no. I mean, we’re not…you know… _doing that_. And you know how hard it is to convict without…wait a second.”

And John actually pauses and looks back from where he was checking to pull out on the road. If John was pressed to describe the look on his son’s face it would be dawning fear. “What?”

“Wake him up…he was asleep when you left?” And yeah, that’s genuine fear coloring his son’s voice.

“I wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind to confront him.” He’s still not in the right frame of mind to confront him, but he’s so far done with the lies.

“Yeah, yeah, can’t blame you…but he should have woken up when you opened the door, scratch that, he should have woken up when you came in the freaking house.” Stiles eyes are wide in his face and while John is normally very good at not letting others panic affect him, he can help but feel it clawing up his chest.

“I wasn’t exactly being loud.”

Stiles ignores him. “We need to get home. Dad, please. I promise you I will tell you every little detail, even the ones where I don’t come off so pretty, but we need to get home _now_.”

And it reads like the truth. It’s the only reason John pulls off the side of the road without comment. He tries to concentrate on the road, tries to ignore the frantic mumbling Stiles is doing, too low to make any sense but strumming with enough tension that John gives into the temptation to flip the sirens on.

And he thinks he sees a bit of the picture forming so he asks, “Do you know what he took?” He thinks about calling it in, calling an ambulance out, but they’re close enough they’re going to get there first and he can make it to the hospital in under three minutes from his house, when pressed.

“What?”

John tries to pull the professionalism back over his voice, tries to be calm. “It’s easier, at the hospital, if they know what he’s taken.”

There’s a tense hand on his arm. “It’s not drugs, Dad. I promise.” And John sighs because that reads like the truth too.

He doesn’t have any more time to dwell on it because they’re pulling in the drive and Stiles is opening the door before the car completely stops. He follows his son as he bangs into the house and takes the stairs two at a time. Stiles slows down after he throws his door open but doesn’t stop before he next to the bed. He reaches a hand out and pulls Hale’s shoulder until he’s flat on his back.

“Fuck.”

John can’t even find it in him to reprimand him for the language. Hale has three long gashes, the lowest looking like whoever did it was trying for disembowelment. They’re angry red and John can see a dark patch of blood soaked into the sheets.

“Derek. Shit, Derek! I need you to wake up!” Stiles is shaking him now and John lets out a breath when Hale’s eyes open. They’re glazed over and fever bright, but they’re open. And it’s enough to get John moving.

“We need to get him in the car. I’ll call the hospital on the way.” Together, they sit Hale up, his skin hot and clammy under John’s hands. Hale’s head swings his way and after a few tries his eyes focus on John’s face.

“Deaton’s.”

John tears his gaze away from Hale’s bloodshot eyes to stare at his son. “What?”

The question is lost for a second as they get Hale sort of suspended between them, an arm over both of their shoulders, but then Stiles answers. “Deaton’s. Not the hospital.”

“The vet.”

Stiles huffs, Derek Hale is heavier than he looks, before he nods. “Yeah, the vet. I know you have no reason to trust me. But _please_.”

John just nods before readjusting Hale. Getting him down the stairs is going to be a pain in the ass and if they don’t all end up at the bottom with broken necks he’s going to be surprised.

“Stiles.” Hale’s voice is slightly slurring, like his tongue is too big for his mouth.

“Yeah, buddy, we’ll get you to Deaton’s and he’ll make you feel better.”

“ ’m hallucinating?”

“I don’t know, what do you see?” Stile’s voice is surprisingly calm.

“Sherriff.” And Hale swings his head around again to look a John with suspicion.

“Yeah, no. He’s real. You see anything else though and you tell me.”

They get Hale down the stairs and into the back of the cruiser without killing anybody and John points the car towards the vet, trusting his son. Stiles has his phone pressed to his ear in the backseat, Hale half propped against him. John listens to the one sided conversation.

“Two minutes away at the most. They weren’t even that deep, stopped bleeding and everything…” There’s a pause. “We were kinda running blind here. _Again_.” There’s a longer pause. “You said beware of the green ones…it was red! You never said to beware of the red ones! You didn’t even tell me there could be red ones! Blue and green, that’s what you said…” There’s a pause and then a long sigh. “Yeah, yeah, inconclusive data, time crunch, to err is human. We’re here.” Stiles takes his phone away from his face and addresses John, “Pull in the back.” Puts the phone back to his ear, says, “By the way, my dad’s here,” before hanging up and shoving the phone in his pocket.

John couldn’t even find it in him to be surprised when Isaac Lahey comes crashing out the back door to help them get Hale inside. It’s a chaotic few moments but they get Hale on top of the metal table and Deaton, the _vet_ , doesn’t even blink at the gashes that are now bleeding sluggishly. He does, however shoo them all out of the room with a force that despite its calm, is unavoidable as a hurricane.

 John stares at the closed door for only a second before turning to his son. “You promised me an explanation.”

XXX

Werewolves. Just… _werewolves._

Stiles looks like he’s waiting to see if he’s going to freak out while Isaac is trying to be a small as he can against the far wall. John tries to smile reassuringly in his direction, the kid looks like he’s afraid John is going to shoot him any second now, and Isaac unbends a little. They crowded into Deaton’s office after they got kicked out of the exam room and Stiles sitting on the edge of the couch, his knee bouncing up and down.

“So what tried to take out Hale?” He’s actually proud at how normal his voice sounds. His son fights alongside werewolves to keep the town safe from supernatural creatures, he thinks he deserves to be proud his voice sounds pretty normal.

“A dragon.” Deaton’s voice has them all turning towards the now open door. “to put it simply.”

“Dragons?” And there goes the normal tone in his voice.

“It’s dead.” Stiles says this like he thinks he’s being reassuring. John just blinks at him.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have actual paying clients.” Deaton turns and lets Hale past him into the room. John has to admit the kid looks better, the gashes are gone and his eyes look clear if exhausted. It’s good because John is planning on asking him a lot of questions and now he doesn’t even have to feel a little guilty at asking while the kid’s hurt. Hale’s even managed to find a pair of jeans somewhere.

Before John can decide on a first question, Hale is half collapsing on the couch next to Stiles, before digging his hand in his son’s pocket and pulling out a phone. John sort of gapes at this, because while Stiles makes the expected disgruntled noises at being jostled, he doesn’t actually object to Hale digging through his pockets.

Turns out he decided on a first question. “Wait, are you _actually_ dating my son?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> It's rough and unbeta'd but I needed to get it out of my head. I named the Sheriff John cause it's pretty fanon at this point. (though I almost changed it to Steve...Sheriff Steve Stilinski). hope you enjoyed :)


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